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High Court of Australia delivers landmark ruling that Indigenous Australians cannot be deported

Adaena Sinclair-Blakemore - 17th February 2020

Equality and Non-Discrimination| Migration Asylum and Trafficking

On 11 February 2020, the High Court of Australia (HCA) delivered a landmark judgment in which it ruled that indigenous Australians cannot be considered “aliens” under the Australian Constitution and therefore cannot be deported. The judgment is significant because it marks the first time that the HCA has considered whether non-citizens of Australia, who nevertheless […]

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OxHRH

Vote, But You Cannot Verify: The Namibian Supreme Court’s Presidential Election Decision

Ndjodi Ndeunyema - 17th February 2020

Right to Vote

On 5 February 2020, the judgement of Panduleni Itula, concerning the constitutionality of using electronic voting machines without a voter-verified audit trail (paperless EVMs), and thus the validity of the 2019 Presidential Elections, was delivered by the Namibian Supreme Court. Itula was much anticipated, particularly in a heavily contested political climate where the incumbent President […]

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Dilution of the Presumption of Innocence Principle in India

Nirmalya Chaudhuri - 15th February 2020

Criminal Justice

In two cases decided in 2019, the Bombay and Calcutta High Courts adopted diverging positions regarding the applicability of the reverse onus clause contained in Section 29 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). In the case of Imran Shamim Khan, the Bombay High Court convicted the accused by relying on the […]

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Supreme Court of Sri Lanka Recognises Custodial Death as a Violation of the Right to Life

Amra Ismail - 15th February 2020

Access to Justice| Criminal Justice

In the landmark judgement of Rathnayake Tharanga Lakmali v Niroshan Abeykoon, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka held that the extra-judicial killing of a suspect in police custody violated the right to life, despite the absence of an explicit right to life in the Constitution of Sri Lanka. The court directed the State to pay […]

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Trumping Human Rights in the United States? The Commission on Unalienable Rights

Katharine Young - 13th February 2020

Constitutions Institutions and Nation Building

It is a common and very productive exercise, within contemporary philosophical or anthropological inquires, to examine the foundations and content of human rights. What’s more unusual is for a nation-state to singlehandedly pursue that effort. This may be happening now with the Trump Administration’s new Commission on Unalienable Rights. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in […]

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The Gambia v Myanmar: ICJ upholds the rights of Rohingyas

Anant Agarwal - 10th February 2020

Access to Justice

On January 23, the International Court of Justice announced the imposition of provisional measures against Myanmar. Myanmar is required to immediately cease all atrocities and human rights violations against Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic minority group. In a suit instituted by The Gambia, Myanmar is alleged to have committed genocide and crimes against humanity, including mercilessly […]

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The High Court of Malawi Nullifies May 2019 Presidential Election in Landmark Judgment

Mary Jiyani - 5th February 2020

Constitutions Institutions and Nation Building

In a landmark judgment, Saulos Klaus Chilima & Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera v Arthur Peter Mutharika & Electoral Commission, a unanimous bench of the High Court of Malawi nullified the country’s May 2019 elections and ordered that fresh elections be held in 150 days. Malawi becomes the third African country to nullify a presidential election, after […]

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A novel approach to Get refusal: the use of the offence of coercive control to obtain a religious divorce

Tristan Cummings - 4th February 2020

Gender Equality| Religion

For Jewish women, obtaining a religious divorce (Get) can be life-changing. Women denied a Get are considered ‘chained’ to their husband, preventing them from re-marrying within the faith (whilst not affecting the husband’s ability to re-marry). The power to grant the Get is usually considered the unilateral right of the husband. Because a purely religious […]

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External

Parliamentarians and Freedom of Religion or Belief

Nazila Ghanea Thiago Alves Pinto - 29th January 2020

Religion

Parliamentary networks for human rights are not unheard of. Several networks exist which draw attention to the role of parliaments and parliamentarians in the promotion and protection of human rights, for example, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)’s Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians. The UN General Assembly, the […]

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The Urgenda case: human rights obligations to reduce carbon emissions

Rebecca Mooney - 29th January 2020

Climate Change

The Netherlands’ supreme court has ruled that the state has ‘direct legal obligations’ to reduce carbon emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020, compared to 1990 levels (Urgenda v The State of the Netherlands, 20 December 2019), following a detailed Advisory Opinion of the Attorney General and Procurator General.  An unprecedented victory […]

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Teitiota v New Zealand: A Step Forward in the Protection of Climate Refugees under International Human Rights Law?

Adaena Sinclair-Blakemore - 28th January 2020

Climate Change| Migration Asylum and Trafficking

On 7 January 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) issued a landmark ruling in which it recognised, for the first time, that forcibly returning a person to a place where their life would be at risk due to the adverse effects of climate change may violate the right to life under article 6 of […]

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A Gay Kiss on the Internet: Can Strasbourg Litigation Help Win the War Against Homophobia?

Stephanos Stavros - 27th January 2020

Equality and Non-Discrimination| Freedom of Expression

On 14 January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Beizaras and Levickas v Lithuania, as a result of the Lithuanian authorities’ failure to prosecute homophobic speech targeting two young men (the applicants) who “had kissed on the Internet”. The kiss – a […]

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